


A Lincolnshire Lad

by GillianInOz



Series: Endeavour Thursday [1]
Category: Endeavour
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Thursday is Morse's Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 08:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12295146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillianInOz/pseuds/GillianInOz
Summary: Summary: Its 1950, and Fred Thursday receives a letter that will change his life, telling him he has an eleven year old son named Endeavour.





	A Lincolnshire Lad

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Alternate universe, obviously. A young Thursday, and I changed the timetable up a bit and had him move with his family to Oxford a few years earlier. Hey, if you’re gonna go full AU, you might as well enjoy it.

Manchester, August 1950

Prudence Lane met him at the door, drying her hands on the apron tied around her trim waist. “Yes?” she said politely.

“Mrs Lane?” Thursday took off his hat and held it by the brim to hide the trembling in his hands. “I’m Fred Thursday. You wrote to me about Constance?”

“Oh.” Prudence dropped the apron and stared at him in surprise. “Oh, yes, Mr Thursday,” she said stiffly. “You came. I wasn’t sure you would.”

Fred bit off a curse word. “Really?” he said, striving for calm. “I’m amazed. After all, it’s not every day a man finds out he has a son he didn’t know existed.”

Mrs Lane looked from side to side at the neighbouring houses, and Thursday noted a twitching lace curtain from a faded grey house on the right.

“Yes, well,” Mrs Lane said hurriedly. “You’d better come in then.”

She led him down a dim, narrow hall into a small front parlour where a spindly legged table sat in the middle of a faded but spotless clean carpet. The mat looked ruddy brown in the thin light coming through the stiff curtains, but it might once have been a bright Chinese red, a long time ago.

“Please, sit down,” Mrs Lane said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Thursday eyed the spindly chairs around the table dubiously, and chose instead a sturdier looking wooden chair from by the window, polished to within in an inch of its life. He pulled it a little closer to the table and sat down, holding his hat on his lap.

“No, thank you,” he said politely. 

Mrs Lane pursed her lips but carefully pulled out one of the chairs and sat at the table, linking her hands loosely in front of her on the gleaming surface. A large doily sat in the middle of the table, slightly yellow with age, and on it sat a pink vase stuffed with artificial flowers.

Fred hated artificial flowers, they reminded him of death. 

“Thank you for writing, Mrs Lane,” he said. “I was very sorry to hear that Connie, that is, Constance had passed. Must have been quite a shock.”

Mrs Lane inclined her head. “She’d been ill on and off for some time,” she said. “Her heart,” she continued vaguely.

Thursday narrowed his eyes. That was a lie. He’d been a copper long enough to know one when he heard it. But he let it pass, needing to get on with this.

“Where is he?” Thursday said bluntly, not willing to waste time. “The boy.”

“Constance married,” Mrs Lane said. “After she… found herself in trouble. There was nothing underhand about it,” she said hurriedly. “The man knew all about it, said he was willing to take on her and the child.”

“Sounds a decent sort,” Thursday observed.

Mrs Lane looked away. “Yes,” she said distantly. “Well. It’s not like my sister had much choice. Our parents were pious people, and stood by her. But she refused to be sent away to have the child. Insisted she wanted to keep it. When Mr Morse offered for her she accepted. She always said, despite everything, she was grateful to him for that.”

Fred realised he was gripping his hat brim so hard it was being crushed beneath his hands. He deliberately relaxed his fingers and kept his voice even.

“Morse?” he said, trying not to get distracted by the turmoil in his gut. He hated this, hated hearing that Connie had been forced into a loveless marriage. Hated that his son had another man’s name, was eleven years old and didn’t know his real father. “What’s the boy’s name?” he asked. My son’s name, he thought.

“Endeavour,” Mrs Lane said, lifting her head proudly. “Constance might have fallen by the wayside but she still attended meetings, when he’d let her.”

“Endeavour,” Fred repeated dubiously. Was this a lie too? Who was called Endeavour? Poor little sod. “Is he… Where is he now?” 

“With his father,” Mrs Lane said, then drew back in her chair at whatever she saw on Thursday’s face. “Cyril Morse,” she said quickly. “His step mother wasn’t keen, she has a new baby of her own, but Cyril insisted, said he wouldn’t have it said he’d turned the boy away, even if he was no blood of his.”

“How kind of him,” Thursday said evenly. “Your letter said Connie died three months ago. Were she and Mr Morse divorced then?”

“Three years ago,” Mrs Lane confirmed. “A terrible embarrassment. I’m grateful our parents weren’t alive to see it.”

Yes, I’m grateful too, Thursday thought furiously. The bastards wanted rid of their own grandchild, forced their daughter into a loveless marriage, and if they’d lived long enough would have been ashamed of her for finally escaping it. Fred was fucking thrilled they were dead.

“May I have his address?” he said as evenly as he could manage.

Mrs Lane looked fretful and picked a little at the threadbare doily. She had long, narrow fingers, her hands were work worn, the bones in her wrists protruding. “I’m not sure,” she said tentatively. “I posted Constance’s letter to you on impulse, when I found it amongst her things. At the time I was worried about the boy, and still very upset about my sister. But now I’ve had time to think. Maybe it wasn’t my place to stir all this up.”

Thursday reined in his impatience. “Worried?” he pounced. “Worried about what? What’s wrong with the boy?”

Mrs Lane slid her hands back under the table and out of sight, straightening her spine. “Nothing,” she said defensively. “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s as I said, his step mother, well.” She tightened her lips. “They don’t get on. I’m sure there’s faults on both sides.”

“He’s a little boy who’s grieving for his mum,” Thursday said. “How could he be at fault?”

“Endeavour is a difficult child,” Mrs Lane said stiffly. “He hardly speaks, for one thing. Just watches everything with those eyes of his. Her eyes,” Mrs Lane said, and for the first time she showed some real emotion, her lips quivered and her eyes moistened a little.

Thursday felt a touch of sympathy under his worry and impatience. Prudence Lane was still grieving for her sister too, in her own way. And whether she regretted it now or not, she had written him, alerted him to the fact that he had another son out there in the world, one he’d never laid eyes on. One who was so far outside his life at the moment that Fred couldn’t begin to protect him. For that he owed her his gratitude at least.

“Mrs Lane,” he said, softening his tone. “You said you were worried about the boy. About Endeavour. If there are problems at home, I’m sure they’d be grateful for some help. I don’t want to disturb the boy’s life if he’s happy and settled. But he is my son. I’d like to see him and make sure of that for myself.”

Mrs Lane bit her lip. “Happy?” he said doubtfully. “No, I couldn’t honestly say he’s happy. The thing is, Mr Thursday,” she said, leaning forward a little. “Gwen, his step mother. She wants him sent away. There’s a school near where she used to live, well, more of a home, really. Blenheim Vale. She’s been working on the boy’s father… I mean, on Cyril. Telling him that Endeavour would be better off rough and tumbling with a lot of other lads. But that can’t be right, can it?” she said fretfully, twisting her hands together. “Just packing him off to a boy’s home?”

“No,” Thursday said, his gut ice cold. “No, it’s not right. May I have the address please, Mrs Lane?”

And Mrs Lane got up without another word and fetched it.

888

Fred pushed the coins in and waited for the buzzing click as the phone connected. “Win?” 

“Fred, love,” Win said anxiously. “Have you found him?”

“He’s in Lincolnshire,” Fred said. “I have to go, Win. Things don’t sound too good, his situation isn’t ideal. I’m driving straight on from here, quicker to drive from Manchester than go back to Oxford.”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course you must.”

“Win, I may have to bring him home, love.”

“Things are that bad?” She said worriedly. 

“Apparently there’s a wicked step mother,” Fred said grimly. “Wants to put him in a boy’s home.”

“Oh, Fred,” Win exclaimed. “How could she? That poor little boy. Of course you must bring him home, sweetheart, if that’s the right thing to do.”

Fred leaned his head against the wall of the phone box, his heart wrung with love. “I wish you were here, Win,” he confessed. “I’m a bit out of my depth.” 

“You’ll do fine, Fred,” Win said firmly. “Trust your instincts.” The pips chimed. “You go, love,” Win said hurriedly as the seconds ran out. “Don’t worry about us, we’re fine here at home, waiting for you.”

888

Fred drove the long miles with nothing but worry. Worry over Win at home in a new city with two small kiddies. Worry for the state of his marriage with an unexpected child appearing on the scene from a relationship over and done before he’d even met Win. Worry for his boy, this unknown child. Endeavour.

“What the hell kind of name is Endeavour?” Fred muttered, as he drove through the night. 

888

The house was no worse than many he’d seen, nicer than most could afford in the East End where he’d been born and raised. But for all the red bricks and flowering bushes there was a grimness about it. A grey pall. Probably just his imagination, Fred thought, as he stepped out of the car and stood gazing at the house where his son lived.

He was a tall man, Fred Thursday, with broad shoulders and big, strong hands. No movie star, but not ugly either, pleasantly plain, with coal black hair brushed back from his brow and brown eyes creased and kind. Right now his broad brow was set in a worried frown and his eyes were tired. He’d stopped at an inn the night before, aware that he couldn’t just show up in the late hours and demand to see his son.

He’d hardly slept worth a damn, but he’d been able to get into clean clothes and carefully shave before setting his hat firmly on his head and driving the last few miles.

It was 8am, still early by some standards, but not too late that the boy would have been off to school, surely. If she hadn’t already sent him packing to this bloody boy’s home, Fred thought grimly. 

The door was opened by a sturdy, wide shouldered woman, fair hair scraped back in a tight bun. She looked him up and down in an unfriendly manner.

“Yes?” She said, already preparing to close the door in his face. Fred wondered if he looked like a door to door salesman, or a debt collector chasing down a late payment.

“My name is Fred Thursday,” he said politely. “I’m looking for Mr Cyril Morse. Is he in?”

“He’s sleeping,” she said shortly. “He works nights.” She began to push the door shut, but Fred swiftly inserted one leather clad shoe in the opening and applied his shoulder to the closing door. 

“Perhaps you could help me then, Mrs Morse,” he said firmly. “It’s about Endeavour.”

Mrs Morse pulled the door back reluctantly and frowned at him. “The boy? What about him?”

“Could I come in, Mrs Morse? I’ve come from Oxford via Manchester, directed here by Mrs Prudence Lane.”

Mrs Morse assumed a sour expression, and it fell so naturally to the lines of her face that Fred assumed it was her usual demeanour. She looked him over once again, up and down, her eyes even more unfriendly than they’d been moments before, but finally stepped back into the hall.

“You’d better come in then,” she said. 

She led the way down the narrow hall into a cramped kitchen, smelling of old grease and rotten veg. If Mrs Lane had been a spit polisher, Mrs Morse was what Fred’s old mum would call a slattern. The stove was greasy and the sink piled high with last nights pots. 

And then Fred saw him. Sitting at the table, russet auburn curls a tangle on his head, long arms, the wrists shot from the cuffs of a shirt a size too small for him. Long fingers delicately turning the page of a book.

Fred’s heart stopped in his chest as the child lifted his gaze and looked at him disinterestedly. His knees went weak as he recalled Mrs Lane’s words. Those eyes, her eyes.

Fred Thursday had scarcely given Constance Penington a thought in twelve years. Their budding romance had been cut short by the war, he’d joined the army straight out of the police force, given her a kiss goodbye and been off to see the world. By the time he got back he had two years of hard growing up beneath his belt, and then he’d met his Winifred and all other girls had vanished from his head. 

But now he could see her again as he’d seen her then. Eighteen years old, all long coltish legs and russet curls. Eyes that shone blue in the sunlight and turned smoke grey in the shadows. Eyes that looked back at him now from a child’s face in a dirty kitchen in the wilds of Lincolnshire.

“You should be off to school by now,” Mrs Morse said sharply, and the boy carefully laid a piece of card in his place and closed the book. He stood, pushing his chair quietly under the table, and walked away without a word said.

Fred’s eyes followed him and he resisted the urge to reach out and snatch him up. My son, he thought numbly. So tall, so like his mother. 

“Can I offer you a cup of tea, Mr… Thursday, was it?”

“I won’t trouble you,” Fred said, his voice sounding thick to his own ears. He listened for the boy’s footsteps on the stairs, but instead only heard the front door creak open and close. “I only recently heard that Constance had passed away,” he said. “I won’t beat around the bush, Mrs Morse. I’ve come for my son. I’ve come for Endeavour.”

888

Fred sat in his car by the front gate, watching the road that Mrs Morse told him led towards the school. She’d not offered to let him wait inside, and he hadn’t asked. In truth after just an hour in her hovel he couldn’t wait to get back outside and breath the fresh air. 

Cyril Morse had been roused from his bed and he’d emerged grumpy and rumpled, suspenders down around his waist and his vest stained and poorly darned. Unlike his wife he hadn’t been hostile, he’d shrugged when Thursday explained he hadn’t known the boy existed, and just scratched at his neck when Thursday said he would be willing to take the child off their hands.

“She always was secretive,” Morse said carelessly. “Never told me who you were. Just that you’d gone away to war. I thought you’d died, but she’d never say, one way or another. Don’t suppose she knew.”

Fred brooded, as he sat in the front seat, ignoring the ache of hunger in his belly. He’d been too wound up to eat last night and this morning he’d only taken the time for a cup of weak tea before setting off. Now it was dinner time, and Mrs Morse had told him that Endeavour would be home for his lunch at half past. 

He pulled the letter out of his pocket and opened it, smoothing the folds and staring down at the slanted writing. He had it just about memorised by now, but he read it again anyway, as he waited for his and Connie’s son to walk down the road.

_Dear Fred,_

_I hope you are well and happy, and I pray that the news I am about to give you doesn’t change that happiness in any way. When you went off to training my mother took me back to Manchester to stay with my grandparents. I was there two months before I realised I was pregnant._

_Believe me, Fred, when I tell you I phoned the training camp and tried to talk to you. They told me your unit had shipped out, but wouldn’t say where. I wrote to your mother at Ridgefield Road, and she sent me your details so that I could write to you._

_But everything seemed to take so much time, and if my letter reached you, and if you ever responded, I shall never know. I only know that I was obliged to marry a friend of my father’s, or risk losing my child._

_Fred, I would never have burdened you with the knowledge that I unwillingly denied you of your son, but I fear that soon I will not be here to protect him, and he will need someone to take care of him._

_Please, even if you chose not to acknowledge us all those years ago, please do find your boy now and make sure that he is safe and well. If you ever cared about me at all, you will do this for my sake._

_Please contact my sister Prudence Lane at the address enclosed._

_Goodbye  
Constance."_

Fred folded the letter back up and tucked in his jacket pocket. Even after so many readings it still stung that Connie could believe he would have abandoned her and his own child. Through his pity and his sorrow he could still feel a rage that she hadn’t asked his parents for help, or somehow found a way to wait for him.

He knew he was being unfair, and that he couldn’t imagine being in her place. Her sister’s story had certainly spelled out the position Connie had found herself in. Marry Cyril Morse or lose her child.

At that thought Fred’s blood ran cold. What if she had bowed to pressure and let them take the boy away? Fred would literally have never known his own flesh and blood was out there in the world. It didn’t bear thinking about. He looked in his rear view mirror at the meagre collection of belongings in the back seat of his borrowed motor. 

A small battered case with the initials EM etched onto it in a wavering hand. A pile of books tied with a rough string, he recognised from the piece of card sticking out of one as the book the boy had been reading that morning. And a stuffed bear, possibly the saddest toy Fred had ever seen in his life. Limp and worn, it had stitches where its glass eyes had been, and one of its ragged paws was darned with red wool. 

A group of children were racing down the street, yahooing and pushing at each other as they ran. Fred climbed out of the car, his heart beating hard in his chest, but the children raced by, boys and girls. None of them had russet curls.

He looked back down the road and there he was, the boy from the kitchen, he had a piece of paper in his hands and he was staring down at it as he walked, frowning at it a little. Another gaggle of children ran by and one pushed his shoulder, hard. He fetched up against a sagging wooden fence, and the paper fluttered from his hand.

“Oi, you cheeky bugger!” Fred said, long legs eating up the ground as he hurried down the street. The children parted around him like a school of fish and continued down the road, laughing and yelling like little lunatics.

“Are you all right?” Fred asked gruffly. The boy was brushing at his hands and pulling his coat down around narrow hips. The coat was too small for him as well, and thin as paper. He had dark shorts on, and one of his socks was sagging around a narrow, grubby ankle. He bent and picked up the fallen paper, and Fred was struck by how graceful his every move was. How carefully he straightened the paper out.

“All right?” Fred said.

The boy looked at him, tilting his head a little to one side. Those eyes, Fred thought. Surely those eyes were too old for such a youngster? 

“Yes, thank you,” the boy said politely.

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to push you,” Fred said lamely, completely at a loss for anything sensible to say now that the time had arrived. He just couldn’t seem to stop staring at this quiet, constrained child with the flyaway curls and eyes too old for his face.

“Yes they did,” Endeavour said prosaically. He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“Oh,” Fred said, nonplussed. He nodded towards the paper Endeavour still held so carefully. “What have you got there?”

Endeavour looked at the paper, looked at Fred, then looked back at the paper before slowly proffering it.

It was an essay, Fred saw, with E. Morse written in a scrawled hand on the top corner. On the other corner was an A plus. Fred smiled in delight. “A plus!” he said, grinning at the child’s composed face. “Well done!”

Endeavour blinked, for the first time showing something other than a blank complacency. Was that surprise on his face, Fred wondered. Did the lad get so little praise that a kind word from a stranger was so unexpected?

“You were visiting Gwen this morning,” Endeavour said, extending his hand for the paper. He folded it carefully, meticulously, and slipped it into his pocket.

Fred nodded, suddenly tongue tied again. He’d spent the last few hours turning this over and over in his mind. Should he let Mrs Morse tell Endeavour who he was? Did Cyril Morse want to do it? Would hearing it from a stranger be too great a shock? Would it frighten the lad?

“Is that your car?” Endeavour said suddenly, and Fred nodded again, glad of the reprieve.

“It’s the one I drove here in,” he said. “It belongs to a mate at work.”

“Can I sit in it?” Endeavour asked politely. 

“If you like,” Fred said, trailing behind him back towards the car. He opened the front door and Endeavour clambered in and sat behind the wheel. He was tall for his age, Fred thought, with long arms and legs. But he still had to peer up to see over the shining wooden steering wheel. He looked in admiration at the dials and levers, running grubby fingertips over the gear lever by the wheel.

“Endeavour,” Fred began, crouching by the open door.

“Don’t call me that,” the boy said fiercely, whipping his head around to stare at Fred. His blue eyes were bright and hard. “My name is Morse, that’s what everyone calls me.”

“Sorry,” Fred said awkwardly. “Morse.” Well, who could blame him? Fred thought. What kind of name was Endeavour to saddle on any child?

Morse’s thin shoulders relaxed. “That’s all right,” he said composedly, his sudden spurt of anger forgotten. 

“Morse,” Fred started again. “Your Aunt Prudence sent me, from Manchester. I mean, I’m from Oxford, she’s in Manchester. Actually I’m from London, originally,” Fred broke off, wishing with all his heart that Win was here. He had no idea what he was doing.

“My mother was from London,” Morse said quietly, his hands falling away from the wheel to drop in his lap. He looked down at them, flexing his fingers as if he could still feel the polished wheel against them.

“I know,” Fred said, wanting to touch those thin hands, knowing he’d just gather Joan or Sam up in his arms if they looked so sad, but having no idea how to comfort a child who was a stranger to him. “I knew her,” he said.

Morse’s eyes flew to his, interest sparking in them. “You did?”

Fred nodded. “I, um, I cared about her, Morse. Very much.” Not exactly a lie, Fred thought guiltily. He must have cared about her at some point, the way a man does when he’s 20 and a pretty girl with russet curls runs into his arms and throws her head back with laughter.

“I called her Connie,” Fred said, remembering. “Everyone else called her Constance.”

“It’s a Virtue Name,” Morse said. “She was a Quaker.”

Fred thought dimly that he’d known that, she’d mentioned it. Meaningless to him at the time, and he didn’t know much more now. “Virtue Name?” Fred said, and then got it. “Oh, Constance, Prudence, Endeavour.” 

Morse frowned at him again and Fred laughed and held up one hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I just figured it out.”

“She called me that,” Morse said. “And I didn’t mind so very much. But she’s the only one who did.”

And you want to keep it that way, Fred thought.

“Why are you here?” Morse said. “Why are my things in the back seat?”

Fred frowned. The boy must have quick eyes to have spotted his belongings as he climbed behind the wheel. 

“I saw them in the mirror,” Morse explained. “You must have been looking at them earlier.”

Fred quirked an appreciative smile. “You’ve got a quick mind, Morse,” he said. “Must be why you got an A plus.”

“Are you from the boy’s home?” Morse said, his face going blank all of a sudden. “Is she sending me away after all then?”

Fred felt a curl of anger at the blank stillness that had come over the boy’s face. No child his age should look so resigned, so empty.

“No,” Fred said, giving up on subtlety. It had never been his strong suit. “I’m your dad. I’ve come to take you back home with me.”

Morse turned in his seat, his blank expression falling away. He stared at Fred, looking at his hat and his eyes and down at his hands, resting on his thighs as he crouched by the car on the quiet road. “You’re my dad?” he said dubiously. “I thought you were killed in the war?”

“Did your mother tell you that?”

Morse shook his head slowly. “He did,” he said, his voice flat. 

“He was wrong,” Fred said, and Morse nodded. 

“He usually is. This isn’t a trick, is it? To get me to go to the boy’s home with no fuss?”

“It’s not a trick,” Fred said, his throat closing up a little at the spark of worry in those composed, blue eyes. He pulled out his wallet and showed Morse his warrant card. “See? Fred Thursday. Oxfordshire City Police.”

Morse took the card and looked at it, reading all the words carefully. “Gwen said the police come and take bad boys away,” he said thoughtfully.

Gwen’s a bloody cow who needs a good slapping, Fred thought. He’d never struck a woman in his life, well, except for Fat Lizzy who’d tried to knife him in the balls when he’d pinched her for nicking punter’s wallets while they had their pants down. But he was seriously considering changing the policy of a lifetime for Gwen bloody Morse.

“Gwen’s mistaken, that’s not what real policeman do,” he said. “Real policemen arrest real criminals.”

“Do you solve crimes?” Morse said. “And gather clues and put together the pieces like a puzzle?”

Mostly I kick heads and pinch lowlifes, Fred thought. “Sometimes,” he said. 

“And are you really my dad?” Morse said, eyes still fixed on the warrant card. 

Fred lifted his hand and gently laid it over Morse’s fingers where they gripped the card. “Yes,” he said.

888

“Can I have my bear?” Morse said, pointing to the sad stuffed toy, leaning drunkenly against the worn suitcase.

Fred opened the back door and handed it to him.

“Can I say good bye?” Morse asked.

“Of course,” Fred said, and he followed the boy up the walk and into the house. Morse didn’t head for the kitchen where the pots and pans rattled, or the living room where a radio blared a cheery lunchtime program. He went up the stairs and Fred followed him down a hall papered with faded cabbage roses, into a small, light nursery. 

Here, at last, was a tidy space, cheerful and inviting. Clean lacy curtains fluttered at the windows, and on a shelf sat a China doll and a music box.

A cot stood in the centre of the room, and Morse carefully handed Fred back the bear while he unlatched one side and lowered it down. A dark haired baby lay sleeping in the muted sunlight, one tiny fist pressed against her pink cheek. 

Morse laid the teddy bear next to her, then leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to her smooth brow.

“Goodbye Joycey,” he said. He carefully lifted the cot’s side back up, and Fred leaned forward and helped him fasten it. Then he followed the boy back down the stairs and to the front door.

“Don’t you want to…?” Fred looked back down the hall and then at Morse’s thin back, his shoulder blades like wings beneath his worn, old coat. “Never mind,” Fred said, burying his rage. They knew he was here, they knew he was taking Morse with him, but neither could stir themselves to even see the lad off.

The hell with them then. Fred followed Morse down the walk and let the front door slam behind him. Morse jerked to a stop at the sound, and looked at him over his narrow shoulder. His eyes were wide and luminous with unshed tears, but his face was as composed as ever.

“Want to drive?” Fred offered. 

Morse blinked, and Fred just smiled and tossed his keys in the air, catching them deftly. 

“Next time then,” Fred said, and he opened the car door and watched Morse climb in, then closed it behind him.

Fred straightened the rear view mirror and started the car, then glanced at Morse with another smile. “Ready to go home?” he said cheerfully.

Morse just nodded, and looked ahead of him stiffly as they pulled off and drove down the street.

Neither one of them looked back.


End file.
